When I started out back in Louisville there was Harry Collins. He was my first teacher. He saw that I was so obsessed with magic that he taught me the love of magic.
I started studying music at the age of five and a half. My older sister was taking piano lessons. When her teacher left our apartment I would get up on the piano bench and start picking out the notes that were part of my sister's lessons.
I started the class late. The teacher said I would have to learn as much in half a year that the others learned in a year. I did it.
I'd never been a teacher before and here I was starting my first day with these eager students. There was a shortage of teachers and they had been without a math teacher for six months. They were so excited to learn math.
I was 20 years old working as a roofer and a telemarketer and driving a taxi just barely getting by. A friend of a friend suggested I try acting. I was like 'Why? What am I going to do? Community theater?' But I took a class and the teacher thought that I had potential so I moved to Vancouver and started auditioning.
I had a great drama teacher in high school and that's when I started to learn about the history of theater.
When I started writing full time I had not long stopped being a teacher and when at last I had a full day to write I would put music on and wonder to myself - am I allowed to do this? Then I thought: 'I am control of this and no one is telling me what I can do.'
But I think that any young drummer starting out today should get himself a great teacher and learn all there is to know about the instrument that he wants to play.
Research is starting to show that a child should be engaged at least 20 hours a week. I do not think it matters which program you choose as long as it keeps the child actively engaged with the therapist teacher or parent for at least 20 hours a week.
I have to have a character worth caring about. I tend not to start writing books about people I don't have a lot of sympathy for because I'm just going to be with them too long.